Adventures In Fiverr

And Why It May or May Not Be Your Jam.

When I started writing this article, I wanted to tell you to stay away from Fiverr, I really did. It's not that my experiences were so bad. It's just that I felt that using Fiverr the way it was originally designed devalued freelancer work and encouraged the hamster wheel, factory production model, both of which I detest. However, now I don’t think I can do that. Let me explain.

I began my adventures in Fiverr in September of 2018 as an experiment. My only goal was to work with a few real world clients on freelance writing projects and gain some experience, ultimately taking that knowledge and applying it to my own freelance business outside of Fiverr. Money didn’t really play into it, although I wasn’t going to turn it down.

Odds are good that you've heard of Fiverr. At it’s inception back in 2010, Fiverr listed a total of 8 service categories. Everything was $5 regardless of the service and there were some doozies (need dating advice, or life coaching? We got it!). Nowadays though, Fiverr has evolved and matured, becoming a surprisingly robust freelance platform with over 500 service categories. Like some of its peers, such as Freelancer and Upwork, Fiverr is a global marketplace which connects freelancers (sellers) with people and businesses (buyers) looking to hire.

So how does Fiverr work? Whether you’re planning on using the platform as a buyer or seller (or both), it all begins with creating your account. You’re going to provide contact information as well as a way to pay for Fiverr orders. As a buyer, simply search for the service you need, making sure to pay attention to reviews and samples. Once you find the gig you want and feel comfortable with the seller, do yourself a favor and contact them first before purchasing, at least if you’re going to purchase one of my gigs. With only a few exceptions, I’ve found that there’s usually more to the project and it’s best to ask a few questions before money is actually spent.

Speaking of which, once a gig is accepted, the buyer pays right then and there, and the funds are held by Fiverr for 14 days AFTER the product is delivered by the seller and accepted by the buyer. At this time, the seller can either leave the money in their Fiverr account or send it to whichever account they have linked to Fiverr. I always send the money to my PayPal account. It’s a personal preference thing.

As a seller, your task is a bit more involved. After registering your Fiverr account, you have to decide which services you’re going to offer, and there are a few different ways to go about this. My advice is to do some research via YouTube and Fiverr itself to determine what tact you want to take. My experience has been this: I’ve followed the advice of several different “successful” Fiverr sellers and as far as I can tell, none of it has had any bearing whatsoever on whether a buyer chooses my gig over another. I believe that some sellers are highly successful, but I haven’t seen a correlation between cheap pricing versus more expensive pricing. I’ve seen top sellers in both categories. Which brings me to …

The Pros and Cons of using Fiverr as a freelancer (in my personal opinion):

PROS

• There is a gig for pretty much any sort of service you can think of.

• Money is paid by the buyer once an offer is accepted and held by Fiverr until completion. No chasing delinquent accounts. You’re going to get paid!

• All communication is kept within the app, nice, clean, and organized. This also gives Fiverr support a thread to follow if intervention is necessary. I like to compare it to buying and selling on eBay. As long as you keep everything within the eBay (or Fiverr) ecosystem, risk is low and you have a large company to back you in case of a dispute.

• Trustworthiness. Fiverr is a world-renowned brand which goes a long way in establishing trust for businesses looking to hire freelance services.

• It’s easy to set up repeat customers and subscriptions.

• Fiverr’s Sellers Plus subscription service gives a seller access to exclusive requests from top buyers, which means less competition! I think this is a little too “pay to play” in my book and should also belong on the Con list.

• Fiverr Workspace: save clients, show projects, send invoices, and more. Essentially a way to manage your freelance business using Fiverr.

CONS

• Devaluation of services due to insultingly low offers from other freelancers who are inexperienced, can afford to charge less amounts, or don’t care.

• Fiverr keeps approximately 20% of the gig cost. You can probably make more money on your own.

• Fiverr encourages a  “pick me” atmosphere (jumping up and down, waving my arms).

• Final payments are held for 14 business days. I see it as a Con, anyway. Maybe someone else will see this as perfectly fine.

• It’s difficult to stand out, which is a similar problem in most markets. How do you get people to see you? If you figure it out, let me know!

• There are tools to stand out from the rest, but do I really want to wrestle with the devaluation of services? Do I really want more of the same cheap clients? Cheap sells tend to attract cheap buys.

If I could go back and do it again, would I still use Fiverr? Probably not. I love the idea of Fiverr and what it potentially has to offer. But the reality often times left a sour taste in my mouth, not to mention the fact that there seems to be some trick to discoverability that I keep missing. Is Fiverr right for you? It depends on your particular why, and only you can decide that. But I believe that you’re almost always better off building a platform you own versus using someone else’s. From the beginning I wished I'd done a little more research and started posting on LinkedIn with the goal of directing all traffic to my website. Afterall, as a freelancer my ideal client is a business or like-minded individual looking for professional services and LinkedIn is an ideal platform for networking with those types of potential clients. Honestly, you can use Fiverr for this (I currently do). But I would make sure to price your gigs the same as you would charge from your website. Don't fall into the trap of chasing cheap gigs being offered by other freelancers. In my experience it won't be worth it.

I hope you found my little Fiverr adventure tale helpful. Feel free to comment, and / or contact me here on my website. Thanks, and happy freelancing!